Unconditional
by alwayswritewithcoffee
Summary: She doesn't deserve him, but oh how grateful she is to be loved by him. [A Post 8x08 oneshot.]


Sweat is still drying in the dips and valleys of her figure, her body still humming with the vestiges of one of the most encompassing orgasms she's experienced in her life. Sated is the word that Castle would probably use if putting her expression to paper. Eyes closed to bask in the remnants of pleasure, gentle smile curling at her lips because, finally, after weeks of being upended and unsettled Kate feels at home.

It all isn't fixed between them, but even so there is something undeniably right about lying naked with her husband, fingers lazy as they twist and twine together, palms kissing while digits dance and trip along to touch and spin the two solid bands of gold that represent a promise she nearly broke with her selfishness.

Sure, her plan had been born with the best intentions. Yes, she had only wanted to protect her husband and ensure she had one to one day return too. But vendetta's and revenge missions are a lonely road; one pushing only destruction and fracturing the foundation of something that is as vital to her as the breath Kate draws in her lungs.

The best laid plans are so often the ones that fall short. How many times had she, had they, sat across from a killer who only wanted to talk to a victim, who let passion, rage, or fear get the better of them and force them to make a decision that, once completed, could never be reversed.

Some things in life you could never take back. You could only atone for.

"You really have to stop thinking so loud," Castle grunts from her side, the gruff edge of his voice enough enticement to lure Kate into opening her eyes. They feel heavy, endorphins and exertion intent on pulling her into the deep type of slumber that she's been lacking since walking out of the door with a weekender bag clenched between trembling fingers. "I can feel your brain working overtime from over here," he sighs, those blue eyes flashing a deep cerulean that she registers somewhere between pleased, aroused, and frustrated.

And what does it say about them that she can identify three fundamentally different emotions just by the shade of his eyes? It tears at her in ways that develop a thick thump in her throat. She fights at it until it's less an overwhelming thing pressing against her wind pipe, and more of an inconvenience that spreads from that point of contact to burn with guilt, regret and shame deep down in her gut.

Being observant, Rick sees the change immediately, those eyes going darker blue with a somberness that she can barely stand to see. After everything she's done, after everything he's been put through, his first concern is for her.

She doesn't deserve him, but _oh_ how grateful she is to be loved by him.

She doesn't understand it, most days doesn't understand him with his giant heart and gentle hands. Before Castle, people didn't forgive because you asked. People held grudges, people lashed out and held you accountable for things that were even beyond your control. Before her husband, she had never really understood the depth of unconditional love.

And even now, when she has some measure of acceptance to the boundless infinity of it all, Kate knows that she still struggles with not abusing the gift or taking it for granted.

Swallowing against her emotion again, she shifts to cuddle against his larger frame. His arm is around her immediately, warm and broad over her waist.

"Where do we go from here?" she asks the question before she's really thought it through, putting a voice to the thought that has been roaming through her head since their talk in the interrogation room. She knows for herself what should come next but it's not only her life in play. It's no longer just her decision. No longer just her against the world.

If she is going forward, it will be with Richard Castle by her side. They will do this together, or not at all.

"Onward," Rick replies, hand skating along her side to trip along the hollows of her ribs and up to the jagged scar that hasn't fully faded from her bullet wound, patch job ad subsequent patch job repair by actual professionals once she wasn't running for her life.

His answer is a far simpler one than she had been expecting, and the ease at which it comes from her husband leaves Kate skirting the edge of frustration. There is a part of her that welcomes, even needs, as scary as that might be, for the anger and the frustration that she knows he must harbor. She had been expecting some long argument where they retread every solitary step and half-truth she's fed him over their weeks apart.

Instead, Castle seems happy to bask in the fact that she's back in their home, that she's returned to their bed, and that he's been given a measure of the truth. And while his trust to get the rest of it isn't misplaced, she's certainly going to explain it all to him in detail, Kate knows she's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"That's it?" she asks after a beat, trying not to shiver when those big fingers skim underneath her bare breasts and then down along the flat line of her abdomen.

"Should there be something else?" Rick volleys right back, and though his voice is gentle, though he's got a certain sparkle in that endless blue, she can see the underlying hurt. Buried underneath the relief and the love is the broken fragments of trust, something that she knows cannot be repaired with her promises and words.

To repair what she's broken, all Kate can do is be honest, to come to him first and allow him to be her partner both in crime and in life. Just as he promised to be when they stood in the Hamptons and agreed until death do they part.

"I…." Kate hedges on answering him, a silent war waging between a head that needs some kind of peace with the answers and a heart that wants to begin the process of healing the fractures in their marriage. In the end, she lets her head win the battle, far too afraid of holding back the sharp edges her emotion and what damage could be inflected when gone unchecked.

But even if her head is calling the shots, Kate's heart softens the blow, fingers lifting to card through thick strands of dark, sex mussed hair. "You amaze me," she sighs, accepting the flutter in her stomach when his eyes lose that hollow edge and flare to life with an easy joy that she's so missed. "How deep, how unconditional you are in loving me….." Kate pauses for a moment, forcing the churning emotion to quite until she can put words to the heart of the matter, to lay it all out so that he understands just what she sees when she looks at him. "Hell, it's amazing that you love me at all. Anyone else would have given up before we ever had a chance to start."

"You have been worth it," he replies, gentle in the way his head tilts and turns so that he can press his lips to the thin skin of her palm. "Every fight, every misunderstanding, every time where you turn to look at me during a tough case or curl up against me to go to sleep. It's all worth it."

"You could have found someone easier…." she says softly, only realizes from the ragged syllables exiting her mouth and the sharp taste of salt at her lips that she's crying. "Someone that isn't broken and wouldn't hurt you like I have."

"Except I don't want anyone else," Rick tells her. He's still so gentle in how he touches her face, brushing away tear tracks with two soft swipes over her cheeks. "I fell in love with a difficult, and amazing woman. And that woman, for all her faults, is who I want. You are who I want. The woman who challenges me to love her just as much during the rough spots as the happy ones."

"And that's why you've forgiven me?" Kate asks, well aware of how her voice shakes and part of her trembles with the notion that maybe it's not all that simple after all.

"No," he sighs, dipping his head until his mouth has dusted a kiss against her forehead. "I forgive you because you asked, because you want things to change and for us to find our way again. Forgiving you isn't the same as letting go of my anger and frustration; that is going to take time and effort from both of us."

She feels the tension release at those words, the storm calming as if the eye of the hurricane has finally arrived to instill a bit of peace in the midst of hell. Of course, there is more conflict to come, more storms to weather, but somehow the worst seems to be over. With a sigh, Kate allows herself to curl into Castle, dropping a kiss against the curve of his shoulder that has him smiling.

He's fussing with the blanket and the sheet that they've messed up, straightening them out until they lie in a neat cover over both of them. With the warmth of those two coverings over her naked skin and the familiar comfort of her husband at her side, she's not surprised that sleep begins to call again, insistent and entirely convincing in the argument that Kate give in to dreams that will surely feature more pleasant concepts than her husband murdered by a faceless shadow that represents LokSat.

She's already floating somewhere between lucidity and her dreams when Rick speaks, words barely more than a murmur in her ear. Still, his voice is warm and lovely, dripping with how much he loves her in every consonant and vowel. "Always means forever. No conditions, no reservations. You're my always, Kate. And I need you just as much as you need me."

For the first time in months, she slips into sleep with a smile, cradled in the arms of the person she cannot live without.


End file.
